Wordless, mute, dumstruck

I've got writers block. I've lost my muse. My riason d' tere has gone. I bet it's all these writers in town for The Writers Festival sucking up the creative vibe and leaving nothing for me. If that weren't enough there's The Livid Festival grazing greedily on any theatrical or music mana that might be about and The Biennale pumping tankfulls of art inspiration, straight from the harbour I believe. And the worst of it; they all write. Word consumption is at a premium. It's a wonder there are any words left in Sydney. I should just go bush till it's over.

Perhaps that's what writers retreats are about, why Lawrence went to some southern NSW seaside cottage to write Kangaroo. Go somewhere remote where there aren't so many greedy word hogs. I wonder are there word hot spots, the mother lode of words just waiting out there to be combed from the beach or harvested from fields. As many words as grains of sand, imagine that.

Perhaps I should seek investors to finance some word prospecting. I know it sounds a long shot but just imagine the share price if I came back with a 'Davinci Code' or a 'Harry Potter'. I could give family a special deal you know. I've been looking at pension options. The best on offer falls about $149 a week behind Bunnings and that already includes the $71 pension earnings threshold. Imagine trying to find the job which paid no more or no less than $71 per week. Would that be pre or post tax? would it incur tax? Does this cast a light on that old codger who sells the morning papers (words) at Stanmore Station?

So here is the deal. For about two fourty a week, cash in hand of course, I could quit Bunnings and free my time for prospecting. Now I would need some travel expenses, but these could be easily offset against the pension provided indemnity on health, negating costly insurance. The $2.50 a day travel pass has already proved itself a prospectors boon even as far as Goulburn. With accommodation, internet and a few capital outlays on kit including state of the art lap top I could surely get by on under $500 per week.

Cheep you say, but imagine if O'KeefesandCo were to incorporate as the name suggests taking up share offers to distribute the strain and thus have the option when the time comes, as it surely will for some of our senior members, to pass the baton to the next generation. Jamison should be doing ok at Mr. Chicken some fifteen years hence and will be looking for a sound investment. Obviously the cash nature of this undertaking has its pitfalls but properly drawn contracts on acid free paper buried in a tin box would indemnify all participants and could even provide the pearl forming irritant to the Eldorado like mother lode of Stieg Larsson best sellers.

Any of you who have persevered with this drivel to read this need only to comment within the next forty eight hours to receive a 20% discount on full shares in the soon to be released Okeefesandco Word Prospectors.